FILE PHOTO: A Tencent sign is seen during the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai, China August 3, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s Tencent Holdings is scouting for partners in South Korea and Southeast Asia to offer cloud-based games, after entering the Japanese market last month.

Li Guolong, product manager at Tencent Cloud’s gaming solutions, told Reuters in an interview that the company particularly saw potential in Southeast Asia as its users there were less wedded to playing games on consoles such as Playstation and XBox.

Cloud-based gaming allows users to directly stream games from the cloud on to mobile devices, computers and consoles without having to download them, reducing the need for data storage.

“This year, going overseas is a major theme for us, we are exploring all possibilities,” said Li on the sidelines of the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference, also known as ChinaJoy.

Tencent Cloud, the second-largest cloud service provider in China behind Alibaba Cloud, said last month that it had entered Japan’s cloud service market with a focus on servicing gaming firms and was targeting up to five-fold growth in international revenue of its cloud business this year.

“We want to support the whole ecosystem and small and medium game companies would have more user acquisition opportunities when they are no longer impeded by the need to download games,” said Yang Yu, head of Tencent Cloud gaming solutions.

The Chinese social media and gaming firm is undergoing a restructuring process in an attempt to expand into enterprise services. Its nascent cloud business contributed 9.1 billion yuan ($1.32 billion), or 3% of Tencent’s total revenue in 2018, according to its annual report.